Confessedly there is a point in view. There is in view that point so essential to religion, which, treating of the sacredness of law, we have treated as of the utmost importance. We shall ever deem that day a day of calamity to the Christian world, when, (but it never will occur,) infringing the code of universal equity, the law is violated by the obliteration from the page of life, of the individual whose oversight gave rise to the considerations we have above submitted.

These considerations no truly pious person will esteem unbecoming the noble design of advancing the interests of religion. Every body knows that if violence be offered to the laws, religion will of course sustain dreadful injury. The laws themselves will cease to be respected, as it is known and felt that they have been outraged contrary to the precepts of Christ Jesus.

No question can be more interesting. We profess we are a religious people, and that the age in which we live is a religious age. We profess, we more than profess, we boast that we are disciples of the faith; yet we cannot regard with unconcern the violation of the laws in cases of imminent peril to the lives of fellow men. For God's sake, let us be charitable! Do not let us overlook what is due to the integrity of that name which we have derived from the merciful author of our religion. Let us also be merciful. Would that the spirit of mercy might occupy every heart!

Mercy would be not incompatible with justice in the

case here, for the illustration of argument, particularly We add no more, but return to our confes

noticed. sionalist.

The confessionalist and the narrator prosecute the same object though in different ways. He has unsparingly extracted from his authors; the narrator has made his extracts too; but feels as if he had extracted only the powerful in argument, sentiment, or diction. The narrator has offered some remarks on a celebrated public event; the confessionalist, in enforcing the observance of religious duties, has burst asunder the ties of faithful friendship by his violations of private confidence. Both have consulted the poets. The narrator was of opinion that, by making his quotations follow each other in closeness of succession, the mind of the reader would be more likely to be impressed; as where is no abhorrent confusion, there the blaze of verse and song may light up dormant principles, or cause the sentiment of religion to flow again around the heart. The narrator's poets are those who have in a tumultuous roar of ardent epithets contended for heaven.

His writers who have not essayed the sublimities or beauties of metrical ascents, he has cited with the like desire to render them in their measure subservient to his plan. We quote Watson, because Watson is in himself the most graceful and yet dexterous, though not the most energetic, of the moderns who have written on the side of Christianity. Watson is a liberalminded man. He writes like a gentleman, and with the precision of a true scholar. He has with much art

refuted the leading arguments of his opponent, and has no where abused his victory. While he is refuting he is endeavouring to reclaim.

Thus conscious of the great value of the doctor's book, we have taken from it numerous extracts. Addison is not quoted without a similar sense of his merits; for Addison wrote well on religion, if on other subjects he had the misfortune to have been light, frivolous, and irksome.

Madame de Genlis is already well known to the reader: and it is not possible to know her too well.

Few

Our task has now become unburdensome. more incidents than we have narrated remain to be given. The confessionalist informs us, indeed, that he is now, he believes, a rational Methodist, of which he has favoured us with an example. He has had preachers from the congregations of the late Mr. Wesley, to preach to the poor and ignorant of his neighbourhood, to whom Mrs. Lackington has piously distributed cheap editions of the Bible, of Llandaff's Apology, with several more such writings. His neighbourhood has accordingly become somewhat of a religious neighbourhood. It will become still more so.

The confessionalist was well pleased with his preacher*, a young man who is most indefatigably zealous.

* Mr. Ward.

The confessionalist further excuses himself to the people of Mr. Wesley, and to the memory of Mr. Wesley himself is willing to do all possible justice. Mr. Lackington confesses that two letters published by him in his Memoirs, and alleged to have been from the pen of Mr. Wesley, were absolute forgeries. The confessionalist had himself been imposed upon by a printed pamphlet which fell in his way. As to the two letters, they are wretched bad things, that would have disgraced the veriest proser of the Minerva school. Mr. Wesley was a bold thinker. It was not possible for him to have written the two letters in question; nor any other not in a high degree chaste, classical, and

correct.

Having misrepresented their leader, and traduced themselves, no wonder that Mr. Lackington is anxious to be now thought genuinely zealous in the cause of that people (the Methodists, for years an injured sect,) to whom he has returned. The confessionalist may be depended on in the article of his zeal.

Not deeming the last pages of the Confessions worthy to be narrated, we have, it will be perceived, thought it our duty to give only a brief sketch in this our concluding part. We do not arrogate merit from our labours. We have only not been wanting in diligence of research and fidelity of narrative. That is the whole of merit which we claim. Mr. Lackington furnished the idea; we have endeavoured to give the image of a book.

Some things we have omitted. This was unavoidable. The confessionalist really was doing no more than tacking together shreds and patches when he was preparing his volume. We have made use of only the sound parts.

A merit of the confessionalist's is distinguished. He is, amid his violations, zealous to promote true friendships. He is likewise a good-natured man. With all his inequalities, the bent of his thinking is liberal. Every body is averse from countenancing wild enthusiasm or raving fanaticism. He has entered his protest against both those melancholy habits of the ignorant zealot.

He can view scenic exhibitions without religious qualms. He thinks the theatre might become a school of morality; and yields the tribute of his praise to one of our eminent actors*; a gentleman who is, undoubtedly, a most facetious performer, whose blemish, if he have any, is a monotonous mimicry of himself, in his best, in all his characters, good and bad. Munden is Gobo! Launcelot Gobo! in every thing.

* Munden of Covent Garden. The confessionalist, who saw Mr. Munden in the character of Placid, in the comedy of "Every One has his Fault," when that comedy came out about twelve years since at Covent Garden, thinks that his friend Dick Thrifty might be said to have acted that part in real life before it was acted on the stage. To what this alludes is to that circumstance of Mr. Thrifty's having reconciled the two neighbours, Mr. D. and Mr. C. whose incident the reader has met with in our narrative.